A Million Tears (The Tears Series)

by Paul Henke

  The wind increased steadily. I could see the billowing grey, cauliflower shaped clouds beneath the towering anvil and the blackness where the rain was blotting out the horizon. We put two reefs in the mainsail and took down the other sails. The boom was well out to starboard and we were running before the wind.

  The seas began to break against the stern and we were surrounded by whitecaps, four or five feet high. We put on our oilskins and took in another three reefs of sail. The whole of the sky astern of us was a black, tumultuous mountain of cloud while ahead it still showed blue. It was becoming cold in spite of the fact we were only just north of the Tropic of Cancer.

  Jake and I stood in the cockpit and watched the black wall of rain sweeping down, cutting off the light as it overtook us. There were a few minutes of light rain and then it became torrential. The wind whistled through the rigging and we had to shout to make ourselves heard. The boat was pitching and turning like a corkscrew, and the day had turned to twilight. We pulled the boom in but still had plenty of headway to keep the stern to the wind. Inexperienced though I was, I could appreciate that if a wave ever turned us broadside to the sea and wind there was every chance we would turn turtle.

  The wind whipped the sea and rain across the cockpit so hard it lashed us like buckshot pellets, visibility was as far as the bow, and lightning was splitting the sky every minute. I was scared to death.

  ‘We need to keep running before the wind,’ Jake yelled in my ear. ‘This storm is going to last for some time and it takes a lot out of you. You go down below and try and get some sleep, or at least rest and come and relieve me in four hours. Okay?’

  ‘Okay,’ I yelled back. He helped me to open the hatch to the saloon and close it behind me, gallons of water sweeping in as we did. I threw off my oilskins and sat down heavily at the table, trying to think if there was anything else I could do. The stoves were out and every moveable item tied down.

  I did fight my way across the heaving deck forward, scraping my shins a couple of dozen times and looked through the hatch down to the bilges. They were bone dry. I looked in on our passengers trying to reassure them. The women were still kneeling by their bunks praying, the boy lay on his, staring at the overhead bulkhead. He ignored me when I told him not to worry. I went back to the saloon and sat at the table. All that was left was for me to worry instead.

  45

  Twenty four hours later Jake and I were close to exhaustion after spending four-hour watches on, fighting the wheel and weather and the next four off, lying on our bunks. It was impossible to rest, the movement of the boat threatening to throw us onto the deck. We saw nothing of the Mendozas and I did not know whether they were alive or dead; anyway, I was feeling scared enough so that I no longer cared.

  The wind did not abate by so much as a knot. The seas were mountainous and often, as I stood at the wheel and we plunged down the side of a wall of water, I wondered if we would come up the other side. Jake kept telling me the Lucky Lady was a highly seaworthy craft, well built and able to take far worse. I wondered which of us he was trying to convince.

  Then disaster struck. Jake and I were changing over and I was looking forward to going below for a drink of water and to wash the salt off my face when there was a loud ripping, rending sound. In the grey afternoon light we saw the mainsail tear in half, flapping wildly, making a noise like a number of pistol shots. The mast creaked ominously under the strain.

  ‘Stay here,’ yelled Jake. ‘I’m going to get the sail down.’

  I watched helplessly while he crawled over the deck, a safety line paying out behind him.

  The sail was ripped from top to bottom and was now in two almost equal halves. Jake slackened off the halyards, pulled down armfuls of sail and rolled it up under his feet. It was hard, dangerous work, the boat pitching and yawing like a mad thing, and many times Jake had to stop and just hold on for grim life to avoid being swept overboard.

  Once it was down, he undid the clew outhaul and pulled the sail clean off the boom. He passed the sail back to me and I shoved it underfoot, out of the way. Jake then tightened down on the main topping lift, pulling the boom tight against the boom jack, a rope which held the end of the boom to the deck. He left the lazy jacks, used to contain the sail while it is being lowered, and fought his way back to the cockpit. It had taken him the best part of an hour to carry out a task which we had done in ten minutes on a bad day when we both nursed a hangover.

  He stood alongside me in the cockpit, regaining his breath and watching how the boat performed. We now had no way to keep the stern pointed at the waves and though I spun the wheel back and forth as far as it would go it was more luck than judgement that stopped us turning turtle.

  ‘I thought we’d have this problem,’ yelled Jake. ‘Leave the wheel and help me get the sail to the stern. We’ll tie it to the stern cleats and throw it overboard. It may act as a sea anchor and steady the boat.’

  I nodded and together we pushed the sail to the stern guard-rail. I was freezing, soaked to the skin and frightened to death. We tied a dozen lengths of manila rope to the canvas and worked it overboard. Immediately the stern steadied into the wind and waves. We hugged each other with delight and returned to the cockpit. Jake lashed the wheel to prevent the rudder damaging itself and we both went below to the saloon. There was nothing further we could do, except pray and I had not done that since I left Llanbeddas.

  We had a brandy to warm ourselves and then Jake went back to the after cabin. I lay down and must have dozed off. The next thing I knew we were being thrown about as wildly as ever.

  I climbed into my oilskins and went up to the cockpit. Jake was already there. Glumly we stared at the stern where the ropes had parted and were flapping wildly in the wind.

  ‘Do we have enough canvas to do that again?’ I yelled at Jake.

  He shrugged. ‘I don’t think so. I can repair a sail but I can’t make a complete new one, and so I don’t carry that much.’

  ‘Then what the hell do we do?’

  ‘Cut down the main mast,’ his reply startled me.

  ‘Don’t be daft man, we can’t do that.’

  ‘Do you think,’ he screamed, ‘that we could hoist a mizzen or jib, come about and keep her pointed into the wind?’

  ‘How the hell should I know? You’re the seaman.’

  ‘Well I’m telling you, we can’t. So far we’ve been lucky but we could turn over anytime. If that happens we’ll probably slide to the bottom and meet Davy Jones. Without the main mast the boat has a good chance of righting herself again. With it there’s no chance. Understand?’

  I nodded.

  ‘Get the axe out of the locker,’ he yelled. ‘I’m going to cut the mainstay ropes off above our heads. That way no flying rope can take an eye out or cut our faces open, all right?’

  I nodded and suddenly grabbed the wheel to stop from falling. We were now yawing as much as sixty degrees either side; any more and we would turn over. I did not need Jake to tell me that.

  Carefully we made our way out of the cockpit and towards the mast. The wind dragged at our oilskins. Sea waves and rain poured down our necks and the lightning flashing across the sky added a further touch of high drama to the scene. In spite of the weather it took only seconds to cut the ropes free and clear the deck. Jake took the axe from me. He loved the Lucky Lady with a passion I would never equal, but even so it hurt me to see the axe bite deeply into the foot of the mast. He cut a chunk out of the downwind side and then attacked the mast behind and above the cut. The mast bent a few degrees, then another swing and it went a little further. Jake was panting heavily but would not let me take over. Instead he swung the axe with greater effort, blow quickly following blow. With a loud crackling noise the mast toppled, still not cut free but now touching the water, dragging the boat to starboard. A few more strikes and it was severed completely. With a heave from both of us it slid over the side and was immediately lost from sight. We crawled back to the cockpit and down into the after c
abin. Jake was utterly spent and I helped him into his bunk.

  ‘Go and tell the other three to tie themselves into their bunks and not to get up for any reason. Tell them if we turn turtle we’ll still be all right and to wait for us to come upright again,’ Jake ordered.

  I took some rope from the cockpit locker. Both women had been sick at some stage but had been unable to do anything about it and just lay in the filth, holding on to each other. I told them what the situation was and tied them to their bunks. They accepted it with resignation.

  The boy screamed that I wanted to murder him when he was tied down so I threw him the rope in disgust, explained the situation again and left. I went back to the after cabin and tied myself alongside Jake, lay back and wondered if there was a God.

  How long it lasted I have no way of knowing. I do know I was hungrier, thirstier and more scared than I had ever been before. At one time, some hours later, the worst happened and we turned upside down. We hung painfully from the ropes across our chests and stomachs, our legs dangling in front of us. For a heart-stopping moment I waited to see the water pouring in as we slid to the bottom of the ocean but then we slowly began to turn upright, the pressure eased and we found ourselves on our backs again.

  That never happened again, thank God, though we came close a number of times. Sometime in the night Jake and I got off our bunks and put on our oilskins. We were thrown around like straw men in a hurricane, bruising ourselves badly but we were finally ready to brave the storm. Out in the cockpit we manned the two hand pumps, feeling them bite, pumping water out of the bilges. I skinned the knuckles of my hands before Jake called a halt and we returned to the relative warmth of the cabin.

  It seemed never-ending. I was aware of light filtering through the porthole at one stage but I had no idea of the time of day. Darkness followed and another day of greyness, drama and fear. I was so exhausted I floated in and out of oblivion a number of times.

  Suddenly, I was wide awake, listening to an ominous scraping sound along the hull which lasted for a good ten seconds. We were heeled right over. Then the noise stopped. The boat righted itself and remained steady. I looked at Jake in a sudden spasm of deep fear and he must have had the same thought because he shook his head.

  ‘It’s impossible, we can’t have sunk. Come on, we had better go and see what’s happened.’

  We undid the ropes and staggered on deck. Through the driving rain, a hundred yards away we saw a beach with palm trees bending before the fury of the storm. Astern of us was a coral reef we had somehow crossed, the waves in the lagoon were only two or three feet high, virtually calm after what we had endured.

  ‘Quickly, help me get the anchor out,’ said Jake.

  As the anchor dug into the sea bed we came round with our bows facing the storm. We sat in the cockpit for some time, thankful to be alive and cursing the ugly stump of the mast. Estella appeared at the saloon hatch.

  ‘My mother, quickly please. There’s something wrong with her.’

  At first glance I thought the old lady was unconscious but when I felt for her pulse and touched the cold skin I realised she was dead. There was no mark on her and I surmised she had died of a heart attack, the strain having proved too much for her. I remember comforting the girl while she sobbed bitterly with her head on my shoulder. The boy came out of the other cabin, saw what was wrong and threw himself alongside the bunk, sobbing and yelling ‘Mama’ in a manner that surprised me. I left the brother and sister to their grief and went back to the cockpit.

  Ironically, there was now a lightening of the sky to the south and the wind felt as if it was beginning to abate. The rain slackened and we could now see more of the land.

  ‘Is this Bermuda?’ I asked Jake.

  ‘I don’t think so. Though where the hell we are, I’ve no idea. It’s possible I suppose that we’ve travelled further than I think. No, hell, this can’t be it. I thought I knew every bay in Bermuda and I don’t recognise this place.’

  ‘Shall we stay here or go ashore and find out?’ I asked.

  ‘I think we’d better go ashore. We’ll take the old lady. I don’t like having a corpse on board for long. It’s bad luck.’

  We wrapped her body in a piece of canvas and Dominic and I took her ashore in the dinghy. I returned for Jake and the girl and we stood in a silent, irresolute group on the shore. Finally, Jake and I used the axe and our hands to dig a shallow grave while the two youngsters stood side by side, crying. When we were finished Jake and I left the two of them to pray over their mother’s grave.

  ‘It’ll stop raining soon’ said Jake, looking towards the patches of blue sky to the south. ‘If we are on Bermuda then we should find a village or something quite close. We could go and look or return to the boat and start in the morning.’

  ‘Now we’re ashore,’ I said, ‘there’s no point in returning and wasting the rest of the daylight. Anyway, it’s nice to have solid ground underfoot again, instead of her heaving deck,’ I pointed at the Lucky Lady.

  We looked through the thinning curtain of rain, at the boat riding at anchor, a dark silhouette, bobbing on the water.

  For most of the way the jungle and palm trees stopped about five yards from the water’s edge, but here and there it sneaked in clumps to the sea. We had not gone a hundred yards when we came to a shallow stream of fresh water, near where the beach curved out in a spit. Here the reef joined the land and we could see the white coral only a foot or two beneath the surface. On the other side there was no more reef, only a beach. Here the trees were further away from the sea and an expanse of white sand swept unbroken for a half mile or more before curving out of sight. Inland we could see a hill rising above tree top level, its domed top reminding me of pictures I had seen of volcanoes. I was looking for a sign of life, such as rising smoke or a house. I saw nothing.

  Jake and I shrugged helplessly at each other and continued along the beach. The rain stopped and a shifting cloud allowed the sun to shine through from the west. A rainbow appeared to start from the end of the beach and curve towards the sky, beautiful beyond words. With the sun came a buoyancy of spirits, an unfounded hope that all would soon be well and we walked more briskly. We removed our oilskins and left them under a palm tree. The sand was soft underfoot and our boots would sink a few inches but it felt good to have ground to walk on again.

  At the end, the beach curved north and before us stretched a similar beach to the one we had just walked along. That too curved out of sight about half a mile away.

  ‘Do you know what we’ll find when we get there?’ asked Jake.

  ‘Yeah. The same again, only this time heading west. Then when we get to the end it’ll turn south and we’ll be back where we started,’ I said bitterly.

  Jake nodded. ‘There’s no doubt that this is not Bermuda.’

  The other two had been listening and the girl asked, ‘Do I understand you don’t know where we are, captain?’

  ‘That about sums it up, Senorita. There may be natives living here but I don’t think so. We ain’t seen hide nor hair of them so far so why should they be around the other side? Especially with the lagoon back yonder. That’s where these people usually make their homes. I guess we night as well go back, get some sleep on the boat and plan what we’re going to do tomorrow.’

  We didn’t hurry. A tiredness was creeping over us and I wanted to sleep more than anything. We picked up the oilskins and reached the sand spit. The sun was shining off the sea on our left when we turned north. Against the barrier of coral the sea broke endlessly in a white spume and here and there clumps of coral rose two or three feet above the sea level.

  ‘Jesus,’ Jake screamed, dropping his oilskins and running along the beach.

  I was only yards behind, panic and fear bubbling up within me as the Lucky Lady sank fast. Water was slopping over the gunwales and only her remaining mast and superstructure were visible. By the time we reached the dinghy only the mast was showing. Jake stopped irresolute and stared, his fists
clenching and unclenching as even that slid further down. I grabbed a paddle, lined myself up on the Lucky Lady and drew a long mark in the sand, pointing at where she was disappearing.

  The Mendozas caught up with us and they too stood and stared. As the top of the mizzen slid from view the girl gave a little sob and sank to the sand. Her brother put his arm around her shoulders trying to comfort her as she began to cry bitterly.

  For the next hour Jake cursed himself continuously for not staying with the boat, for not pulling her closer to the shore, for not checking if she was holed, for not noticing she was sinking earlier. We remembered the scraping noise as we reached the lagoon and that sent him into another paroxysm of rage and cursing.

  We spent a hungry and miserable night under a cloudless, star-filled sky. In spite of our predicament I managed to sleep and the next morning woke with the sun in my eyes, an ache in my back and hope in my heart. That hope died around midmorning after we walked all the way round the island and saw no sign of human life. We breakfasted on coconuts while walking, and though the milk was refreshing the white flesh was far from filling.

  I said, ‘It’s a deserted island. We need to find shelter or build some, and we need to find food. There’s plenty of fresh water and there’s always coconut milk. If we can learn to live here for awhile I’m sure a boat will come our way and rescue us.’ A sudden thought struck me. ‘How deep do you think the water was when we threw the anchor over?’

  ‘I’d say about forty feet,’ Jake replied.

  ‘I reckon the mizzen mast can’t be far below the surface.’

  ‘Don’t be stupid. The boat will be over on her side.’

  ‘Damn, I hadn’t thought of that. Okay, say it is. It may still be possible to dive down and get something off, perhaps even empty the cockpit locker.’